Modelling Ballistic Impact On Woven Fabric With Ls-Dyna

MODELLING BALLISTIC IMPACT ON
WOVEN FABRIC WITH LS-DYNA
T.W. Ching and V.B.C. Tan

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore,
9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576
Abstract This paper presents a novel method of modelling ballistic impact on woven poly-
meric fabric commonly used in armour applications. This method incorporates
the viscoelastic behaviour of the fabric yarns, yarn crimp, inter-yarn friction and
friction between projectile and fabric. The yarns of the fabric are modelled as
viscoelastic bar elements interwoven together. Excellent agreement between sim-
ulation and ballistic test data is obtained in the prediction of the energy absorbed
by the fabric and the deformation of the fabric during impact. This is achieved
despite the modest number of DOFs.
Keywords: ballistic impact, fabric, perforation, LS-DYNA.
1. INTRODUCTION
Woven fabric is commonly used in today’s protective clothing due to their

excellent impact resistance, high strength to weight ratio and drapability. The
fibres used in the manufacture of such clothing are typically polymeric fibres.
KevlarR and TwaronR are two examples of aramid fibres that are commonly
used. The design of such protective clothing is based mainly on extensive
ballistic impact tests. There have also been various attempts, noticeably from
the last decade, at numerically modelling the ballistic impact of woven fabric
to study the mechanics involved in the deformation and perforation of such
fabrics subjected to small projectile impacts.
The modelling of fabrics varies greatly in complexity, ranging from simple
idealization of fabrics as shells or membranes as reported by Simons et al. [1]
and Lim et al. [2], to detailed full scale discretization of the yarns of the fabric
with solid finite elements as reported by Shockey [3] and Blankenhorn et al.
1879
G. R. Liu et al. (eds.), Computational Methods, 1879–1884.

C 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.
1880 T.W. Ching and V.B.C. Tan
[4]. A popular approach to modelling fabric is to represent them as networks

of one-dimensional elements pin-jointed at nodes [5–7].
Johnson et al. [8] and Shahkarami et al. [9] used bar elements to model
the yarns of the fabric. Shell elements were used to provide contact surfaces
for interactions with the projectile and different fabric layers. The difference
between their models lies in the fabric material model. Cunniff et al. [10]
also used bar elements to model the yarns of the fabric. However, the bar
elements of this model are not co-planar, and the nodes of the warp and fill
yarns are coupled together with spring elements, to better represent crimped
yarns.
The software used by Lim et al., Simons et al., Shahkarami et al., and
Blankenhorn et al. for their numerical models is LS-DYNA [11]. LS-DYNA is
a non-linear, explicit, finite-element software. It has been used to successfully
simulate various types of impact phenomena. The present study also uses LS-
DYNA to model the ballistic impact of fabric.
The present study uses only bar elements in the modelling of the fabric
yarns. These elements are tied together using spot-weld constraints, and are
modelled in a non-co-planar manner. However, the warp and fill yarns of the
fabric are not tied together, and can slide along one another. Details of the
model can be found in the following section.
2. NUMERICAL MODEL
Actual ballistic tests on woven aramid fabric specimens (TwaronCT716)

R were
performed prior to the numerical simulations. Fabric specimens of dimensions
120 mm by 120 mm were fully clamped on all sides during the ballistic tests. The
projectile was a steel sphere of diameter 12 mm and weight 7 g. The projectile
was propelled normally onto the centre of the target by a high-pressure gas gun,
with impact velocities ranging 80–520 m/s. The experimental set-up is similar
to that of Tan et al. [7].
The fabric yarns were modelled using discrete elements with a viscoelastic
material model. As the discrete elements are massless, truss elements with
null material properties were used to add mass to the fabric yarns, as well as
to provide contact surfaces. The fabric elements were modelled with a length
consistent with the actual length of the fabric yarns, and were assigned a radius
of 0.05 mm. The projectile was modelled as a rigid sphere and assigned the
density of steel. Diagrams of the mesh can be found in Figure 1. Only one
quarter of the actual set-up was modelled due to symmetry.
The viscoelastic material model used in this study to represent the aramid
yarns is the three-element spring-dashpot model shown in Figure 2. This model
Modelling Ballistic Impact on Woven Fabric with LS-DYNA 1881
Figure 1. Mesh of fabric.
was also used by Shim et al. and Lim et al. The stress–strain response of this
model can be described by the three parameters as

K2 μ
1+ σ+ σ̇ = K 2 ε + με̇ (1)
K1 K2
The effects of crimp (undulations in yarns of woven fabric) have been found
by Shim et al. to affect the ballistic response of woven fabric and hence it is
important to include this in the fabric model. Crimp effects were incorporated
in this study by modelling the fabric yarns in a non-planar manner similar to
Cunniff, as shown in Figure 1. At the cross-over points, the nodes of the warp
and fill yarn elements were placed a distance of 0.1 mm apart in the thickness
direction.
In order to allow for fabric perforation, the nodes of the bar elements
of the yarns were joined together with spot-weld constraints. These con-
straints were defined to fail using the same failure criteria employed by Shim
et al. [5].
Friction was introduced between the projectile and fabric, as well as between
the warp and fill yarns of the fabric. The friction coefficient between yarns and
between fabric and steel were tested to be 0.2.
K1
K2
Figure 2. Three-element viscoelastic model.

Figure 3. Residual vs. impact velocity (m/s).
3. RESULTS
Figure 3 shows a plot of the residual velocity of the projectile against impact
velocity of the projectile. This plot includes the experimental data, as well as the
simulation data. A similar plot, for energy absorbed by the fabric (calculated
by the loss in kinetic energy of the projectile) against impact velocity of the
projectile, can be found in Figure 4.
The deformation plots of the fabric models subjected to impacts at velocities
of 110 and 400 m/s can be found in Figure 5.
The plots of residual velocity against impact velocity plot (Figure 3) and
the energy absorbed against impact velocity (Figure 4) show that the numerical
model is in excellent agreement with the experimental results. The residual
velocity is seen to vary approximately linearly for the higher impact veloci-
ties. The experimental critical impact velocity for complete penetration of the
fabric obtained is around 110 m/s. The numerical model predicts a slightly
conservative critical impact velocity of 105 m/s.
Figure 4. Energy absorbed (J) vs. impact velocity (m/s).

Modelling Ballistic Impact on Woven Fabric with LS-DYNA 1883
Figure 5. Sequence of fabric deformation.
The deformation plots of the fabric (Figure 5) show that the pyramidal shape
deformation typically observed in high-speed photographs of ballistic impact
experiments, was also obtained by the numerical model for both low and high
impact velocities.
4. CONCLUSIONS
A numerical model of woven fabric comprising discrete elements interwoven

together has been shown to give predictions of ballistic response of woven
aramid fabric that are in good agreement with actual tests. The model is able to
reproduce the deformation and damage that are observed in actual tests. Quan-
titative agreement in terms of residual projectile velocities was also obtained.
REFERENCES
1. J.W. Simons, D.C. Erlich and D.A. Shockey (2001), Finite element design model for
ballistic response of woven fabrics. Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on
Ballistics.
2. C.T. Lim, V.P.W. Shim and Y.H. Ng (2003), Finite-element modelling of the ballistic impact
of fabric armour. International Journal of Impact Engineering, 28, pp. 13—31.
3. D.A. Shockey, D.C. Erlich and J.W. Simons (1999), Lightweight fragment barriers for
commercial aircraft. Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Ballistics.
4. G. Blankenhorn, K. Schweizerhof and H. Finckh (2003), Improved numerical investigation
of a projectile impact on a textile structure. Proceedings of the 4th European LS-DYNA
Users Conference.
5. V.P.W. Shim, V.B.C. Tan and T.E. Tay (1995), Modelling deformation and damage char-
acteristics of woven fabric under small projectile impact. International Journal of Impact
Engineering, 16, pp. 585–605.
6. C. Ting, J. Ting, P. Cunniff and D. Roylance (1998), Numerical characterization of the ef-
fects of transverse yarn interaction on textile ballistic response. 30th Int. SAMPE technical
conference.
7. V.B.C. Tan, V.P.W. Shim and T.E. Tay (2003), Experimental and numerical study of the
response of flexible laminates to impact loading. International Journal of Solids and
Structures, 40, pp. 6245–6266.
8. G.R. Johnson, S.R. Beissel and P.M. Cunniff (1999), A computational model for fab-
rics subjected to ballistic impact.Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on
Ballistics.
9. A. Shahkarami, R. Vaziri, A. Poursartip and K. Williams (2002), A numerical investigation
of the effect of projectile mass on the energy absorption of fabric panels subjected to
ballistic impact. Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Ballistics.
10. P.M. Cunniff and Ting J. (1999), Development of a numerical model to characterize the bal-
listic behaviour of fabrics. Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Ballistics.
11. J. Hallquist (1998), LS-DYNA Theoretical Manual. Livermore Software Technology
Corporation.

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MODELLING BALLISTIC IMPACT ON

WOVEN FABRIC WITH LS-DYNA

T.W. Ching and V.B.C. Tan

Keywords: ballistic impact, fabric, perforation, LS-DYNA.

Woven fabric is commonly used in today’s protective clothing due to their

[4]. A popular approach to modelling fabric is to represent them as networks

Actual ballistic tests on woven aramid fabric specimens (TwaronCT716)

Figure 1. Mesh of fabric.

Figure 2. Three-element viscoelastic model.

Figure 3. Residual vs. impact velocity (m/s).

Figure 4. Energy absorbed (J) vs. impact velocity (m/s).

Figure 5. Sequence of fabric deformation.

A numerical model of woven fabric comprising discrete elements interwoven

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